Knowledge Politics REINER GRUNDMANN University of Nottingham, UK he relation between knowledge and politics has been the subject of many publications over the centuries, scholarly and nonscholarly alike. he term “knowledge politics,” or “politics of knowl- edge,” is ambiguous. It denotes the stimulation and regulation of knowledge production, as for example in science policy. It also denotes the active role of knowledge, as expressed in Francis Bacon’s famous thesis that “scientia est potentia,” which frequently, but questionably, is translated as “knowledge is power.” Two inluential thinkers of the twentieth century, Max Weber and Michel Foucault, have emphasized and examined the close link between knowledge and power, and both have shaped the dominant view that knowl- edge is power. While Weber develops this idea through his focus on the technical expertise assembled in state bureaucracies (Weber, 1978), Foucault asserts that power and knowledge are inextricably bound up with each other so that no power can be exercised without knowledge. Con- versely, there can hardly be knowledge without power implications (Foucault, 1980). In public-policy debates, a version of this dom- inant model has emerged which is called the lin- ear model of policy-making. In this model there is a linear connection between the creation of new knowledge and its ultimate application in policy- making (Pielke, 2007 – the same applies to tech- nical innovations, a topic beyond the scope of this entry). Sometimes this linear view is wedded to the assumption that better decisions emerge as a result of better knowledge. his has been called the “rational” view of policy-making. Others have argued that such views overstate the role of knowledge in politics (Adolf and Stehr, 2017). Social scientists have submitted several of the rational view’s underlying assumptions to critical scrutiny. Critics have argued, for example, that policies are not routinely based on the best available knowledge or evidence, or that bodies he Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. Edited by George Ritzer and Chris Rojek. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/9781405165518.wbeosk018.pub2 of scientiic knowledge do not necessarily lead to courses of political action, let alone to the “best” policy (Jasanof, 1990). Scientiic knowledge is oten irrelevant to policy-making, and policies are based on cherry picked knowledge claims for political reasons. his is to say that knowledge has a legitimizing function (Habermas, 1971). Social scientists are divided on the question of what inluence knowledge has on politics. On the one hand are the supporters of a rational policy concept, according to which more and better knowledge leads to improved policy outcomes. his is oten accompanied by the assumption that an epistemic consensus would make political action easier (Cook et al., 2013; Haas, 1992). On the other hand, it is argued that policy-making is largely divorced from scientiic evidence, but that this need not be a disadvantage (Collingridge and Reeve, 1986; Pearce et al., 2017; Sarewitz, 2000). It is important to spell out what one means by the terms “knowledge,” “science,” and “expertise.” Not all knowledge is scientiic knowledge: here is traditional knowledge, practical knowledge, tacit knowledge, and so on (Grundmann and Stehr, 2005). To bring scientiic knowledge to bear on the policy process, several transformations have to take place, assuming scientiic knowledge is the sum of published research. Decision-makers need to know which knowledge to select for the basis of decision-making and what to do when scientists disagree. Science perceived as the sum total of published research cannot speak to politics – only scientists, and groups of scientists, can do so. his means scientists are making judgments about the existing literature, and therefore give their expert opinion (Turner, 2003). here is a logical and practical diference between the sum of published research and the opinion of scientists/experts, no matter how well they are trying to do justice to the published literature. he politics of knowledge denotes the more or less skillful exploitation of this fuzzy zone between the two. At times, the scientists/ experts who are called upon do not have qual- iications in the ield they are assessing for policy purposes. In these cases, their credentials make up for this shortcoming, and decisions are